Troy Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the killing of an off-duty Savannah policeman. Davis was found “guilty” based on dubious accounts that he confessed to the killing and questionable “eyewitness” identifications that included false eyewitness testimony coerced by the cops. Seven of the prosecution’s nine “eyewitnesses” have since recanted. The only holdouts are one man who may be the actual killer and another who initially denied being able to identify the shooter only to pin it on Davis two years later. Three of the eyewitnesses say their testimony was coerced by the police. New eyewitnesses have come forth identifying another suspect.
Parole Board Delays Decision on Legal Lynching Scheduled for Weds Sept. 21st
Free Troy Davis! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!
There’s No Justice in the Capitalist Courts!
By Steven Argue
During slavery a slave named Dred Scott was taken by his master to what is now Minnesota and Illinois. Slavery was illegal in those territories so Dred Scott took his master to court to sue for his freedom. In 1857 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott saying that a Black man “has no legal rights that any white man was bound to respect”.
Over 500 anti-death penalty activists rallied in support of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal as arguments for his death or for life in prison were being heard before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
The three-judge panel are to decide whether written instructions given to Abu-Jamal's 1982 jury may have implicitly encouraged jurors to choose the death penalty rather than a life sentence.
Stewart Alexander says “The Democrat front-runner Jerry Brown and Republicans Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner support the death penalty and the Three Strikes law. The truth is, these three candidates for governor are aware that capital punishment is robbing the public of billions of dollars to subsidize a broken down criminal justice system.”
Candidate Alexander wants to eliminate death penalty and Three Strikes law
The threat to Mumia Abu-Jamal's life is increasingly ominous. His lead attorney, Robert Bryan, warns: "There is an escalated effort by the authorities to see him die at the hands of the executioner. This is the most dangerous time for Mumia since his 1981 arrest." The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down Jamal's two appeals. If it were to rule in favor of the prosecution's appeal, this would open the way for Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell to issue a third warrant of execution, which he has vowed to do. Contrary to the misplaced expectations of many, the Obama administration is not about to save Mumia. Around the world, hundreds of thousands have marched for this courageous champion of oppressed. Trade unions representing millions of members have rallied to the defense of Mumia. It is urgent to expand this support into powerful labor/black action, appealing to the integrated union movement to join with the black, Latino and immigrant poor to demand that he be liberated.
Appeals to Obama’s Top Cop Eric Holder Spread Deadly Illusions
Mumia’s Life Is On the Line:
Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Him Now!
Internationalist Group at Harlem rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal, 8 May 2009. (Internationalist photo)
This newly released video-interview with author J. Patrick O'Connor was conducted in June, 2009 in San Francisco, at the law office of Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe, which is the law firm representing Kevin Cooper. O'Connor is currently researching and beginning to write a new book about Cooper's story.
by
Ashlee Shelton, Director, Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty | 06.24.2009
"Life is the great primary and precious and comprehensive of all human rights... it is not to be deliberately or voluntarily destroyed, either by individuals separately, or combined in what is called government." — Frederick Douglas
Hello all,
Juneteenth, or Emanicipation Day, is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.
Abolitionists fought for years to break the chains of violence, servitude and oppression that were the backbone of slavery in the United States prior to 1865. Similarly, as Diann Rust-Tierney illustrated in "We, too, are abolitionists," a parallel movement started while slavery was challenged; a movement to abolish the death penalty.
location: Calvary Church - 48th & Baltimore Ave. (W. Philly) -- on the #34 Subway-surface line.
On Tuesday, December 9th the International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Philadelphia International Action Center will co-host an event featuring food and a film - Racist Injustice - on the movement to free Mumia.
The program will include open discussion on what comes next.
Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, known as the "deadliest DA in the US", is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate Mumia's death sentence, despite the mounds of evidence of his innocence. If Abraham's filing is granted that would mean execution for Mumia without even a new hearing or a new trial. We must be prepared to confront this outrage and fight to win Mumia's freedom.
Having read about the death row prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, and having spent many hours reading through transcripts of this case, I have become very concerned of the obvious racism here. Due also to Mumia being a very good journalist highlighting the plight of the socio-economic conditions for African-Americans in their struggle for equality his cards have been so obviously marked in advance, keep up the good work in the campaign.
It cannot be easy to live daily as a dead man walking, to have said good-bye to family, friends and supporters three times and to have waited to be walked to the chamber of horrors called the execution room and there have your life taken even though you are innocent and be unable to do anything about it. And so one can only admire the internal strength of Troy Davis, what he calls his “never ending faith”.
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